The present invention relates to a device for arranging gelatine capsules for loading in blister packs.
The technical sector involved in this patent is in the pharmaceutical industry, being that of the arrangement of products made in low production volumes for packaging, and in particular of gelatine capsules of the sort which contain pharmaceutical specifics.
Statement of the prior state of the art. ES U278428 consists of a device for loading gelatine capsules of the sort that are filled with pharmaceutical specifics, as stated above.
The technique of filling capsules, apart from industrial processes, can be performed by means of simple apparatus like the one mentioned.
ESP9801285 consists of a surface for holding empty hard gelatine capsules and the use of said surface with the capsules inserted, including the arrangement and use of a support for carrying out loading and capsule-filling in small apparatus like the one previously mentioned.
After having been filled and closed, the capsules have to be packed. This packing can be carried out by loose means, in a bottle with the capsules loose. This may entail problems both with the number of capsules provided, and with monitoring the dosage. The solution for this necessarily involves packaging in blister packs, which means the dosage can be divided by periods, also facilitating user control both of the number of capsules contained in the pack, and the number of these that have been consumed. The technology for blister packing of capsules is divided into manual and automatic means. The automatic ones requires large-scale production and are used by the big commercial laboratories. Manual capsule-filling is carried out at chemists"" and small laboratories. It is here that the need met by this device arises. The capsules are handled with the greatest asepsis: nevertheless, the arrangement of the capsules in bottles, jars or other loose presentations is less acceptable to the public than presentation in blister packs, one of whose walls is easily broken by the pressure of the same capsule from the other side. One advantage meant by this system as opposed to the other means of presentation stated above is that, apart from the capsules being isolated, and being able to be transported by groups, units, dosages, etc., it can be checked that a treatment contains the exact number of capsules that were purchased.
This invention covers a device for arranging gelatine capsules for loading these in blister packs which carries out arrangement functions prior to blistering the capsules which have previously been filled.
Starting from the capsule-filling device which is referred to in the previous patent of this same holder, no P9801285, for a surface holding gelatine capsules, after the capsules are filled these are placed in the device by inversion. That is, the device is placed with the cavities downwards coinciding with the capsule-filling device, and this is turned over 180xc2x0. The content of the device is now the set of capsules proceeding from the first filling operation. The device is then placed on the base of the blister package made up of recesses and the plate cavities are separated so that the full capsules can fall into these recesses in an orderly fashion. This occurs because the device assembly has a mechanism which retains the capsules in the position in which these gain access to the cavities in said device, whereas when these move in order to reach the positions corresponding to the blister, the cavities open below, and the capsules are able to drop into the aforementioned blister.